


Fallout

by Anrheithwyr



Series: Love Letters to Shifting Lines [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Shifting Lines - Dovah Tobi
Genre: Gen, Mild Angst, mentions of mother problems, minor/oc characters, shifting lines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26742640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anrheithwyr/pseuds/Anrheithwyr
Summary: Diana's mother was right. She wasn't fit to teach at a school, not with her temper.Or, the consequences of making Remus Lupin cry.
Series: Love Letters to Shifting Lines [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948861
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Fallout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DovahTobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DovahTobi/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Shifting Lines - Book One](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20043763) by [DovahTobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DovahTobi/pseuds/DovahTobi). 



> So this was just an idea that popped into my head while re-reading DovahTobi's Shifting Lines and I thought someone might possibly enjoy it, so uh...yeah. Enjoy. Or better yet, actually read Shifting Lines.

Her mother had always said she had a touch of a temper - or, more than a touch. There had been a fair few letters written home during her Hogwarts days’ that Diana had become caught in yet another fight with other students. But it was not her fault that her classmates were fools and idiots - they deserved whatever she handed out, whether by wand or by fist.

But this?

This time really took the cake. Middle age and she still had no control over her temper it would seem. 

A teaching position at Hogwarts had not been her dream job; she had simply found herself in between occupations when the letter arrived from Dumbledore -  _ We find ourselves once more in need of a Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor _ .

For Diana, it had been something to do for a few years, a position she had experience and interest in, but not the culmination of her life’s work. She knew of the rumours of a curse on the position, something after her time as she had the same Defence Professor all seven years, but had truly believed there was nothing that would stop her from breaking this so-called curse and staying on for two or three years until something better came along.

After all, most Defence teachers, those drawn to the job, were desperate loons who sought out a bit of adventure behind a desk and either found themselves in far too over their heads or else chased off by the sheer boredom of the job.

Not she, not Diana Dedenne, who was content with the work and not easily scared by children. She knew how to handle children, from the mouthiest eleven year old to the most idiotic of seventeen year olds.

The only thing in need of fixing was her temper.

And here she was, sitting in Dumbledore’s office as she had done all those years ago as a school girl - when it had still been Dippet’s office - staring across the desk at the blue-eyed man and wondering why she had been unable to control herself for a full school year.

There was something about this place, she decided, that made one forget themselves and revert back to childhood, to the misbehaving and unruliness of her teenage years. That had to be it, the reason that she had lost herself so unprofessionally.

“Now, Diana, tell me, what are we going to do from here?” asked Dumbledore in a calm voice; he had been her Transfiguration Professor, once upon a time, and that calm voice brought back memories of chastisements over missed assignments and curses thrown at her classmates. 

“Do?” She frowned, looking up from one of the many silvery spinning instruments that littered his desk. “I suppose there’s not...not much  _ to  _ do. I blew up at a student, after all. That’s not generally looked upon too favourably by most headmasters.”

“Mm. I suspect it’s not.” Dumbledore reached into his desk, pulling out a small bowl of lemon drops, offering her one; she wrinkled her nose at the proposed candy and he only popped one into his mouth before continuing. “Do you recall which student it was you yelled at, Diana? Minerva says you seemed quite out of sorts when she brought you up.”

_ How odd.  _

She remembered being angry - there had been a detention, a student who was refusing to do lines, she believed, but for the life of her, Diana could not place a face or name to the child. It had been a boy, one of the younger ones, but she wasn’t sure even which House tie he had been wearing. There had, after all, been a number of boys in detention yesterday.

Dumbledore did not appear bothered by this fact, though, popping another lemon drop into his mouth with that strange smile that said he knew something more than she did. It was the sort of smile that had made him Diana’s least favourite Professor back in her school days and made her despise him even more now that he was her employer.

“Well, I suppose we have a few options here before us. I could release you from your contract a little early - there aren’t too many days left before the end of term, so the students would not suffer terribly - or else we could wait for the last day of classes and you could leave after the school has cleared out. It’s really up to you at this point.”

She knew what he wanted; she could see it in his eyes, those twinkling blue stones that peered into her very soul and made her feel like a fourteen year old girl caught out of bed in a wizard’s duel with her old school rival. 

“Don’t pretend to offer me options that aren’t there,” was her simple response, mind already flickering to all of the things that she would have to pack up before the night’s end. Her mother, hopefully, would take Diana in if only for a few nights, just to give her time enough to find somewhere else to stay.

Yet another job gone, lost because she could not control herself. And this, one of the shortest tenures to her name. Mum would be most displeased.

“Very well.” He stood up, guiding her towards the door. “I will send your last paycheque to your vault with Gringott’s before the month’s end and if there’s anything you’ve left behind after this, I’ve no doubt that Argus will be glad to help me ship it off to you. Even any,” he coughed suddenly, “ _ unmentionables _ if you would still want them.”

She swore that he was practically grinning at her, the bastard. 

“You know who did that, don’t you? Those little brats - and they got away with it, too, because  _ of course _ they did. Attack a professor? Oh, who cares if it’s for a laugh!”

“Now, now, Diana. There was simply no evidence that Misters Potter, Black, Pettigrew, and Lupin had anything to do with your undergarments appearing in the Great Hall. Most First Years are not so accomplished at such charms after all.”

“Just because there was no evidence doesn’t mean they didn’t do it! Who else was causing mayhem all year long if not them?”

“And yet, we do not unduly punish students if no charges can be reasonably held against them. That’s simply just not the way of things here at Hogwarts. Nor, might I add, is yelling at a student simply for not wanting to finish lines in detention.”

Diana looked away, her face burning. She did not feel like standing around and being lectured further - she was no longer a schoolgirl, nor an employee, and was under no such obligation after all - and so yanked the office door open, storming down the stairs and back towards her own quarters to pack.

There was, in retrospect, actually very little to her name that needed to be tossed into her trunks. There were some texts here and there, clothing - which she was very careful to put at the bottom of her belongings and immediately seal away where they could not be touched - and a few pictures of her parents. 

Hers had been a life largely on the move, flitting from one place to the next, one job to another, and she had grown used to packing lightly, but even still, how few items her life added up to still caught her off-guard. 

In total, it took her less than twenty minutes to put everything away and Banish it to the carriage waiting for her out front. At least Dumbledore had given her that much, a way off of the grounds so that she could Apparate home, though she still found it hard to be grateful with the memory of his almost  _ smug  _ smile at the mention of her humiliation.

With nothing else to do - and no one to say good-bye to - she wrapped her summer cloak around herself and headed out, wanting to make it out of the building before the students all came clambering down for lunch. She did not want any of them to see her in such a state and start the rumour mill before it was necessary.

The halls were largely empty, quiet, and devoid of life - her favourite state, really, because it meant there was no one to see her act most unprofessionally as she stomped down the stairs and kicked at pillars, swearing at the paintings and even managing to send Filch’s bloody cat running in the opposite direction.

_ Good _ .

Diana had made it almost the whole way out when she heard a small, somewhat nasally voice from behind her. 

Young Mr Snape, whose hair hung in a curtain around his sallow face, which was carefully crafted into a sullen expression as he hurried to catch up with her.

“You’re leaving?” he asked, looking uncertain. Though, to be fair, as she could recall, Mr Snape really only had two expressions - uncertain and uncomfortably haughty around the few students who could be considered beneath him.

“And I’m to take it that you care?” she asked rather unkindly; her mother had told Diana she was not fit to be an educator.  _ No sense of tact _ , had been her diagnosis when the letter arrived in the family kitchen.

The boy at least had the sense to hang his head a little, seeming embarrassed for having sought her out when no one else cared. “It’s only that, well -”

“Yes? Spit it out, boy, I don’t have all day.”

“I don’t agree with your being released. I - that is - Lupin’s  _ strange _ . More than that, he’s right  _ queer _ and he doesn’t belong here. You were the only one with enough common sense to see that and I don’t see how it’s fair you’re being fired for saying so. I say all four of those  _ Gryffindors _ -” He sneered the word as though it were an Unforgivable - “should be expelled, but Lupin most of all. But not you. You were a good teacher.”

Compliments of any sort had always made her uneasy and it was hard to see Mr Snape’s words as a compliment at first anyway so that a silence hung between student and former professor for far too long.

She cleared her throat, hand grasping at the door. “Right. Well, if that’s all you came to say then -”

“It was.”

“Then I best be going. Good-luck in your studies, Mr Snape.” With that, she ducked out, glad that they were not having a rainy afternoon, and hurried to the waiting carriage.

Her head pounded and she muttered a rather unfavourable word in the direction of the Slytherin First Year for the discomfort he’d put her in. She knew that it was his four Gryffindor classmates that had antagonised her earlier in the term and she  _ knew  _ that the boys did not like her, for whatever reason, but she did not recall Mr Lupin being in her detention the previous day. In fact, as far as she could recall, they had not seen each other outside of class or meal times all year long.

He had nothing to do with her firing - it had been all on her, a heavy weight in her lap that served as a reminder that she had once again proven her mother correct.

She was not fit for a normal career around other people, not when she could hardly keep herself contained for long enough to hold down a job for any meaningful time. It had been  _ her  _ that lashed out at a student and  _ her  _ that was now suffering the consequences.

As the carriage turned a corner that would take the castle out of sight for good, she twisted her head briefly to look back at it, wondering if it had been a mistake to come here at all. She had enjoyed the job as much as she could, but Hogwarts had never been a happy place for her and she had spent the whole year feeling as though she could not escape her school days as the ugly, bumbling girl who could only survive by fighting her way to graduation.

There, at the door, stood young Severus Snape, watching her carriage disappear in the distance, and then the carriage twisted the boy and the castle out of her vision and, hopefully, out of her mind.

If she were lucky, she would never have to think about Hogwarts again for all of her days. Now the only mission was finding a suitable replacement of her income and the best way to explain all of this to her mother.


End file.
